Stock market holiday?

Where do we start? We could begin where Roosevelt did in 1933, and declare a three-day bank holiday. The Fed, the FSA and the Bank of England could then take time and check the books of banks for well-hidden toxic waste – undeclared liabilities. Only when regulators have a proper sense of the scale of the mess can they take decisive and appropriate action. Right now they are sloshing buckets of our money about, unsure as to the whereabouts of the financial "weapons of mass destruction" banks have hidden away.
Except extend the idea to the big brokers. Shut down Wall Street for a four-day weekend, find the bad loans, and buy some time for Congress to apply a bailout — with specific strings attached.

The lawmakers should remember what Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a Democratic majority did during the Great Depression. In the three weeks before FDR was sworn in as President, hundreds of banks failed.

Roosevelt didn't cave in to Wall Street.

He wasn't going to be rushed into some shotgun solution. On his second day in the White House, he closed all banks so the government could have time to review their finances.

He called Congress into emergency session, and secured more than a dozen new laws regulating banks, providing federal subsidies to farmers, emergency relief for local governments and for homeowners facing foreclosures.

Roosevelt's response changed America for the better. Whatever Congress does in the next few days, it should not reward the very people who created this mess.